Distribution Requirements: Celebrity

“Celebrity is more than just fluff,” as Assistant Professor of Sociology and Athropology Rebecca Tiger put it. In fact, Tiger explained, “celebrity is an important identity in contemporary society; not a person or a thing, but a symbolic system we interact around.” Her class, aptly titled “Celebrity,” explores the definition and influence of celebrity in the U.S.

Students in Tiger’s class, which was taught last spring, were tasked with choosing a particular celebrity to follow throughout the term. Jordie Ricigliano ’12.5 picked Lana Del Rey; she followed the artist’s official Twitter and regularly checked relevant gossip blogs.

“By the end of the semester, I felt oddly close to Lizzy. I even called her by her real name, Elizabeth Grant.” Ricigliano confessed, “I found that over the course of the semester, I too was becoming obsessed.” Other students followed famous athletes or politicians; one chose a YouTube star.

This “celebrity stalking” helped students participate in as well as understand the phenomenon of celebrity surveillance and the importance of celebrity in American society. “All of us are affected by celebrity culture even when we say we don’t pay attention to it,” said Tiger, “It matters and is worthy of analytical and theoretical scrutiny.”

Tiger first discovered the power of celebrity when she studied drug-use in school celebrity gossip sites were her diversion. On blogs she visited, Tiger began to notice discussions of drugs and addiction — topics relevant to many young stars like Amy Winehouse and Lindsay Lohan.

“What happens is that [using these sites], people start to construct ideas about drugs and addiction that are different from what scientists give us,” explained Tiger, “If you just see celebrity as a matter of pop culture you’ll miss a lot of more important social issues.”

The class explored topics like the evolution of celebrity, and its debatable transformation into a quasi-religion. It is a common language that builds community. Students brought magazines into class and dissected them, looking for themes. They learned about creation of the “micro-celebrity” and discussed whether YouTube allowed for democratization of celebrity. The class skyped with a writer for Sports Illustrated who had covered the Tiger Woods sex scandal.

“I can never read People Magazine the same way again, nor watch a reality show without thinking, ‘am I watching this in order to feel collective effervescence within an alienated capitalistic hegemony?’” Ricigliano said. “It was one of those classes that you find yourself talking about over the dinner table with your friends and on the phone with family — one of those classes you just keep revisiting in other times in your life, probably because it is so relevant to your life.”